Printing on Tissue Paper

I‘ve had several people ask me how do I manage to print on tissue paper, so tonite while printing out the sheets for my Hopscotch quilt, I took a few pictures of how I did it.

All images are clickable for larger. I apologize for the poor quality, but nite pics and a flash …

I did the ‘guess where the image will land’ on my sheets to many times to count, so I opted to create a “template” the same size as my motif. I used photoshop and am not sure how you would do this in other programs – sorry – I then stroked a line around the edges and printed that. This will tell me exactly where the motif lands on the page, so no waste of tissue paper – the motif includes my overlaps on my repeats and I want to get the most out of each sheet that I use.

For this next step, you can use scotch tape or a glue stick. I’ve used both (when my tape was MIA) and am using tape again because Reg thought of me when he was at the dollar store 🙂 The glue stick worked fine, and I had no paper jams, but if it really sticks to your tissue, you might have a tug of war on your hands and you will lose! So using tape, you tear off a small piece and just place it so it’s maybe 1/8″ covering the tissue. Be sure that your tissue is taunt, but not lifting the paper and run it thru the printer. You may hear the ‘odd’ noise, but unless it jams, I wouldn’t worry, oh and be sure to baby sit your printer until you see how it likes the tissue paper .. I have an HP and it does just fine with this.

I have a rotary cutter that is ONLY for paper and the like. My fabric rotary never touches paper and this one never touches fabric. I picked it up years ago for like $5 – just a cheapy piece of non-ergonomic plastic. Perfect for what I use it for. I would not recommend using your good blades on paper. You wouldn’t cut paper with your sewing scissors right?? Same thing here. Place your blade right where the tape and tissue meet – I wish I could have gotten a closer pic – sorry – need to order a 3^rd arm. Apply pressure and lift the edge of the tissue nearest the blade and pull parallel to the blade – the blade will cut the tape where you have it resting. Do this in all the places you have the tape. OR you can gently score the tape with the blade .. I find that doing the gentle lift and pull doesn’t eventually cut into the paper and I can extend the use of it.

Voila! That’s all there is to it! Seriously and honestly! Here’s the finished motifs for my hopscotch quilt, all clipped together by how many sheets per row 🙂 I hope this helps you and I’ll see if tomorrow I can’t get Kyle to take a pic of me doing this – or rather the next time I do tissue printing.

Have fun with it!